When a baby tree pops it’s first little green shoot out of the warm dark soil, it’s already been doing a lot of growing. This growth, though, is underground happening before any visible signs of life. The tree must first grow roots to support the above ground growth, the roots that will stabilize the tree and deliver nutrients. The roots are the first thing that binds the tree to the earth, holding it in place.
It’s been said that if you look above you at the trees, you can be assured that as far as the limbs spread there are roots going just as deep and wide. Can you imagine? A mirrored image of growth below what the eye can see? It would be like our generation to think that growth was wasted, with no one watching and oohing and aahing. All that energy put into activity that serves no one but the one tree. There is no shade to offer, no fruit to bear…just roots plunging deep and hidden into the soil.
But, wisdom would tell us that if roots are shallow that any growth is just a fluke, a flash in the pan. Any fruit that is borne will be a mealy and weak imitation…all show and no satisfaction. If the visible part of the tree outpaces the growth of it’s roots, it will be vulnerable to harsh conditions of all kinds.
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I wonder if our generation is being tempted to spend a disproportionate amount of energy on the growth you can see versus the growth that you can’t. The growth that you can’t see is sustaining rather than producing…and our culture is obsessed with production.
But, our production will be stunted, cut short, or just plain gross if we pursue the seen growth more readily than the unseen. We need to plunge deep, even when it’s dark and we don’t know the way. Even when it’s quiet and there is no affirmation apart from God.
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This weekend I attended the funeral of a man who met the Lord, got married, raised his kids, served as an Elder for 38 years, and finally had his funeral in the same church. That church is just down the street from the land he lived on all his life, the land that has been in the family for generations. You could see the church from his backyard.
As I bounced Eli in the back of the sanctuary of this tiny rural church, I noticed a sweet sign that noted the attendance for the past Sunday’s service. The sign said there had been 66 people at Bethlehem church this past Sunday, as compared to 64 people exactly a year prior.
I wondered just how many people in my generation would be willing to serve in a church like this one. That little church had approximately 0% flash, but there was sense of deep history and long-serving. It had roots a million miles deep, and judging from the testimonies of just this one man’s life I can imagine the branches spread wide and tall, too.
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This church is a spiritual giant that has grown slowly but steadily from when it first plunged it’s roots into the ground in 1893. This tree’s beauty is not in it’s innovation or it’s excellence or it’s relevance. But, it is winsome in a whole different way.
It is winsome in a way that people of our generation are longing for. It is lingering and fellowship halls and family, it is all heart and commitment. For a generation that has grown out of families broken wide open, that kind of knit togetherness, that kind of abiding commitment, that kind of bearing with could be massively attractive.
Though that kind of commitment and abiding takes deep roots, it will also bear much fruit. It takes a decision to choose a spot in the earth, to plunge into the unknown, and to grow in ways only the Lord sees.